


the sky is burning

by Asvan, Kapitanka



Category: Disco Elysium (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, sadpilotcore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-15
Updated: 2020-02-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:46:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22741207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asvan/pseuds/Asvan, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kapitanka/pseuds/Kapitanka
Summary: YOU - "What, exactly, am I doing here?" - You say. There is no echo. No response, either. The floor is lava (if lava were the temperature of a cooling concrete, broken in pieces, grass finding its way to the surface through numerous cracks).This fic was born from this threadNow with beautiful fanart by amazing QwertyRipTw!
Relationships: Harry Du Bois & Kim Kitsuragi
Comments: 8
Kudos: 54





	the sky is burning

**Author's Note:**

> Pilot-Kim is not Lieutenant-Kim, like Dolores Dei is not Dora, thus the different surname. Still named after a famous anime major with purple hair (Motoko Kusanagi, Ghost in The Shell)!
> 
> ***
> 
> [Many, many thanks for all the encouragement, kind words and helping to make this thing somewhat coherent.](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kapitanka) <3

YOU - You wake up.

YOU - You seem to have dosed off on a slab of concrete, warmed by the sun and still retaining some of that streaking heat of the midday. It is, however, no longer midday. The giant red iris of the sun is close to the horizon, a blood orange, bisected, inevitably rolling off the table and splashing everything with pulpy juice - it will be getting dark soon.

You look up and squint - the sky is burning. It is not *literally* burning, at least it's not supposed to – but the colour of it and the stark shadows of the clouds remind you of wildfires.  
  
ENCYCLOPEDIA [Challenging: Success] - The fires of '15 have caused significant damage to the forests and Coalition property all over the country. The abnormal heat and smoke brought a 27% increase in mortality rate.  
  
INLAND EMPIRE: You are drowning in it, in the burning sky, and the broken glass on the ground reflects the same murderous orange hue. Where are you? What are you even doing here?  
  
1\. LOGIC [Medium] - Try to figure out where you are.  
2\. PERCEPTION [Easy] - Inspect your surroundings.  
**3\. Wonder loudly what you are doing here.**  
  
YOU - "What, exactly, am I doing here?" - You say. There is no echo. No response, either. The floor is lava (if lava were the temperature of a cooling concrete, broken in pieces, grass finding its way to the surface through numerous cracks).  
  
1\. LOGIC [Medium] - Try to figure out where you are.  
**2\. PERCEPTION [Easy] - Inspect your surroundings.**  
  
YOU - Looking around, you see flat (or pretending to be so) concrete panels, trampled into the ground by some unseen force a long time ago. Some of them are marked with faded paint lines, signalling directions that no longer bear any meaning. Rusted hangars, emblazoned with white stars and antlers, quietly rotting away in the distance, flakes of paint in the air. The place feels old.  
  
**1\. LOGIC [Medium] - Try to figure out where you are.**  
  
LOGIC [Medium: Success; +2 – checked your surroundings] - You are in an abandoned military aerodrome. Used by the communards, most likely, if the symbols are not a post-mortem graffiti.  
  
INLAND EMPIRE: They are not.  
  
SHIVERS - The ghosts of airborne machinery hum in the backdrop of your vision.  
  
PERCEPTION (SIGHT) [Easy: Success] – Other than that, you seem to be alone.  
  
YOU – You decide to walk further into the territory. It seems strange to be here – some would even say *eerie*.  
  
INLAND EMPIRE – You should look for ghosts! This place feels haunted. Wouldn’t you like to meet a ghost?  
  
THE SKY – It continues to burn, but no ghosts are burning with it.  
  
YOU – You reach the hangars. They look even more dilapidated up close: collapsed roofs, wall panels missing – stolen for scraps or rusted into oblivion. One of them, however, appears to be more intact than the others – it has most of the walls, and the doors are slightly ajar, but still holding in place.  
  
PERCEPTION [Easy: Success] – It’s open! And something huge is inside.  
  
HALF-LIGHT [Challenging: Fail] – GET OUT OF HERE GET OUT OF HERE GETOUTOFHERE  
  
INLAND EMPIRE [Easy: Success] – Perhaps this is the ghost we are looking for?  
  
VISUAL CALCULUS [Formidable: Success] – It’s too big to be a *human* ghost. Perhaps it’s an aeroplane?  
  
**1\. VOLITION [Medium] – Enter the hangar.**  
2\. Leave it be.  
  
VOLITION [Medium: Success; +1 – Something interesting is inside] – You get a hold of yourself and try to push the doors open. They give in slightly, and you manage to squeeze through the gap.  
  
THE OLD HANGAR – You expect it to be dark inside, but the roof is mostly made of holes, with one section of it completely gone, so there is enough light to inspect your surroundings. As expected, it is an old hangar. Debris litters the floor, but none of it looks intentional – no drinking teens gathered here for their intricate night-time rituals. Just some glass, a couple of rusted and broken tools, planks of rotten wood, dust and iron shavings.  
  
THE OLD HANGAR – The central space is, however, occupied. You see a biplane – a proud machine, wings spanning wide, itching to get back into the sky. It aches for it. You wonder, is it flying or killing it misses the most?  
  
VISUAL CALCULUS [Challenging: Success] – It’s a smaller aircraft, made for speed, not firepower; but it can hold its own when needed.  
  
THE PILOT – Next to it stands a middle-aged man, wearing an orange bomber jacket, his helmet unbuckled, working gloves stained with oil. A faded silk scarf is wrapped loosely around his shoulders. He looks deep in thought.  
  
PERCEPTION [Medium: Success] – White May bells are pinned to his jacket right next to his heart.  
  
YOU - So this is a revolutionary aerodrome after all.  
  
THE PILOT – He turns to face you, momentarily distracted, and you see his face. It seems familiar, somehow…  
  
ENCYCLOPEDIA [Heroic: Success] – Of course it does! It is a legendary Revolutionary ace pilot, Kim Kusanagi. 52 air combat victories. Shot down and killed near Croyant-Morain on 21.04.06. His airship, “Anatra”, burned with him.  
  
INLAND EMPIRE - It’s him! It’s the ghost!  
  
1\. Politely greet him and ask what is it that he’s doing here.  
**2\. Ask if he’s a ghost.**  
3\. Point out that the sky is burning and there’s no flying in such conditions.  
4\. Back away.  
  
YOU – “Are you a ghost?”  
  
REVOLUTIONARY ACE – He smiles faintly. It doesn’t reach his eyes.  
  
REVOLUTIONARY ACE – “Not yet, not yet. No rest for the wicked, as they say… Give me a hand with the hangar doors, will you?” – he steps back from the aeroplane and gives it a critical once-over.  
  
AUTHORITY [Legendary: Failure] – You have to help him. He has seized the control over your body with a simple tilt of a head.  
  
ENDURANCE: [Medium: Failure] – Dïsgraceful.  
  
YOU – You go back to the rusted hangar doors and wait for him to join you.  
  
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT [Challenging: Success] – Bolstered by the pilot’s devastatingly cool aura you find the necessary strength and together you swing the doors open.  
  
PERCEPTION [Medium: Success] – The sun hasn’t gone down even a bit.  
  
YOU - Together, you end up pushing Anatra out of the hangar. She is lighter than you thought. Or maybe that pilot is stronger than he looks. The forever-frozen light colours the white star-and-antlers on his back deep crimson. You feel like you know him. You wonder how many people he has killed.  
  
**1\. Ask the pilot if you know him.**  
2\. Ask him how many people has he killed.  
  
YOU – “Do I know you?”  
  
REVOLUTIONARY ACE – “You most likely do. They printed my face in a lot of newspapers. 52 successful flights – that inspires admiration. Or hatred. Both sides have their press.” – He sighs. – “No matter. I have to go now. Croyant-Morain awaits, I’m afraid. Thank you for helping with the doors.”  
  
REVOLUTIONARY ACE – He turns to climb into the cockpit.  
  
**1\. REACTION SPEED [Challenging] - STOP HIM!**  
2\. RHETORIC [Legendary] - Tell him that time is an illusion and he doesn’t have to go anywhere right now.  
3\. VOLITION [Impossible] - Watch him go.  
  
YOU – With a swift motion, you grab the sleeve of his bomber jacket.  
  
REVOLUTIONARY ACE – He looks at you in surprise, the crease of his eyebrows betraying mild annoyance.  
  
YOU – “Uh…”  
  
YOU – "I'm sorry. Don't know what came over me" - You let go off his sleeve.  
  
REVOLUTIONARY ACE – It seems your ill-planned maneuver succeeded - you have his attention — for now.  
  
**1\. "So. You are going to die if you go out there. I know it. Because it happened 45 years ago."**  
2\. "I *still* feel like I know you from somewhere, and not just from the pictures."  
3\. "We are *literally* frozen in time, I'm not sure you could get away even if you tried!"  
  
YOU – "So. You are going to die if you go out there. I know it. Because it happened 45 years ago."  
  
REVOLUTIONARY ACE – He smiles sadly at you. He smiles a lot, but they are all little smiles, and he makes them not because he is happy. Perhaps it's the same as *The Expression*? No, he *can* stop smiling, and even does so for continuous amounts of time. Strange man...  
  
REVOLUTIONARY ACE – "Time is an illusion, officer. It doesn't matter if I flew to the archipelago half a century ago or will do so tomorrow, I still have to do it. The decision has been made, and I am following it through. In this place volition plays a much more important role than physics" - He glances at the sunset. The sky is still burning.  
  
INLAND EMPIRE – This is a monument. There was no body and no ship, but the sky saw him die and remembered. It is still in mourning. They are all stuck here, forever, because they see only each other and cannot let go.  
  
ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN – "Sounds familiar, doesn't it, Harry-boy? What are you gonna do? You fucked up your own life *real bad*, and now there's a ghost that you feel a *connection* to. Remember the last time when you met a historical figure? Didn't go so well. And I *warned* you!"  
  
LIMBIC SYSTEM – *We* warned you!  
  
ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN – "And yet here you are, looking at this *pilot* with his sad eyes and his greasy gloves and his May bells, and you are trying to do *something* and it fails - time and time again. Funny, especially considering there is *no* time here."  
  
LIMBIC SYSTEM –"let go"  
  
ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN – "Let go"  
  
LIMBIC SYSTEM – "LET GO LET GO LETGO"  
  
VOLITION [Godly: Success] – No. Listen to me. You are *not* letting go. You are not the one who's supposed to!  
  
YOU – "So, Kim... May I call you Kim?"  
  
REVOLUTIONARY ACE – He looks a bit bemused - "Sure".  
  
RHETORIC [LEGENDARY: Success] – "This is the Red Mourning. The sky weeps for you. We have to convince it to let you go. And you must resign to leave it as well. You won't ever get away otherwise. This is the only way."  
  
KIM – The pilot looks at you, puzzled.  
  
KIM – "Why would I ever leave the sky? It's my life there, all of it, written in contrails. I cannot just *leave it*! And what for?"  
  
1\. For war.  
**2\. For peace.**  
3\. For posterity.  
4\. For the quiet nothingness.  
5\. For me.  
  
YOU – "For peace. Look at it. Look at you. You are both twisted, tearing into each other, hurting forever, and the saddest part is that it is all unnecessary. For some, the Revolution had not even begun, for some, it is long over, but for both of you, it is *eternal*. I get the appeal - forever raging against The Machine, at the peak of the tide, never crashing down and destroying whatever it is in front of you. But you've lost the point along the way, didn't you? You were so euphoric, tossed up in the air, wind in your hair, that you forgot the reason it all even started. You are no longer the Revolutionary Ace Kim Kusanagi, 52 victories, died at Croyant-Morain - because you never did. Die, I mean. You are just a sad pilot. Your fate is sealed, but you cling to the past, unknowingly, because that's what you feel the most comfortable with".  
  
ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN – "A grand speech right there. Wonder if you could follow your own advice?"  
  
LIMBIC SYSTEM – "No, he is too hurt and too self-absorbed to listen to anything. And he gets hurt even more because of it. Foolish. He'll die soon."  
  
SAD PILOT – With a heavy sigh, he takes in his surroundings - the glass, the red glow, the trembling wings of the biplane - and then he's gone. Anatra is gone too. The only thing that proves that he was ever here is the faded scarf, lying on the dusty concrete.  
  
YOU – You pick it up.  
  
OLD SILK SCARF  
+2 Volition - Fills you with revolutionary determination  
-1 Pain Threshold - Reminds you of the previous owner  
  
This faded silk scarf that once belonged to the Revolutionary Ace. Its cool visage helps you keep yourself together. It also reminds you that the owner is no longer here. How did you even get this thing?  
  
  
THE SKY – Is no longer on fire. Darkness finally descends, sun rushing to get over the horizon, orange giving way to soft pinks and purples. It feels quiet, but different from before – the planes are silent, falling asleep at long last. It’s time to go.  
  
ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN – “There is nothing. Only warm primordial blackness. Nothing hurts as much lately as it used to. A miracle, truly!”  
  
INLAND EMPIRE – You are beginning to heal. Cutting down on drinking really helped you out. At least you can sleep now. Really sleep, without blacking out and vomiting. You still wake up in the middle of the night because you are reminded of things you’d rather forget (and those you did forget about, and now remember in feats of clarity and shame), but then you go back to sleep. It is good. All is good.  
  
  
***  
  
  
YOU – You wake up.  
  
YOU – You are slouched behind your desk in Precinct 41.  
  
LOGIC [Trivial: Success] – It seems like you tried to pull an all-nighter but finally fell asleep. It was a dream.  
  
INLAND EMPIRE: Or was it?  
  
LOGIC: Yes, it was. You are used to weirdly detailed and terrifying dreams. Still, it was better than talking to your own dead disco body.  
  
PAIN THRESHOLD [Heroic: Failure] – Your back is killing you.  
  
HEALTH DAMAGED: -1  
  
PERCEPTION (SIGHT) [Easy: Success] – It seems no one is here yet.  
  
PERCEPTION (HEARING) [Medium: Success] – Wait! It sounds like the Lieutenant’s Kineema is approaching.  
  
YOU – Of course he’d be the first to show up in the morning.  
  
YOU – As you try to stretch your loudly protesting back you hear the Lieutenant open the door.  
  
KIM KITSURAGI – He’s seen you in worse conditions. Much worse. Unfazed by the display and the sound of loudly cracking joints, he greets you.  
  
KIM KITSURAGI – “Good morning, Detective. How’s the investigation?”  
  
YOU – You give up on trying to stretch and launch right into the half-planned theory you’ve been working on when you fell asleep. You feel good, despite the back pain. Work is invigorating.  
  
KIM KITSURAGI – The Lieutenant follows your lead, asking questions, and the theory finally takes shape. You love this. You live for this! The day is yours. Allons-y!  
  
MORALE HEALED: +1


End file.
